Thursday, 23 May 2013

Awkward Questions

It's been another busy few weeks in the Law household.

I had the Focused Women (the bank's gender diversity network, of which I am chair in Scotland) annual conference this week, and an Inclusion conference last week (with a networking evening the night before), and then another Education committee up at the Council (most interesting 2 hours of my week, no question), and my last Parent Council meeting as chair of Broughton PC (*sniff*). These all conspire to take me away from my day job, and often away from Andrew and the girls later on into the evening.

I couldn't do half of the things I do without having a husband who is as supportive as he is, so as it's coming up for Father's Day I thought I would give him a little shout out on the blog.

And that brings me on to the awkward questions - I regularly get asked at events a question along these lines, "I read your bio and you seem to do so much - how do you manage it?".

That's a very awkward question to answer, my self-effacing side wants to say, "Well, I don't do half the things I do as well as I should, and I have a very untidy house" but that's not strictly true. I don't do things if I don't think I can do them well, and some of the house is quite tidy (mostly because of Andrew!).

So, I usually say, "Because I have a very supportive husband who does all the things that I can't do."

This week, I made that reply, and the woman asking me told me that she too had a husband at home, and it didn't really seem to make things that much easier. That was awkward. I wasn't sure how to respond!

I also get asked, with alarming regularity, "Do you ever see your children?", to which I have to resist the urge to snap, "Of course I bloody do. Do you think I would do half the things I do, if I didn't actually have time with them?"

Instead, I explain about the way we chose to live on the way to school so I can drop them off in the morning on my way to work. And how Andrew and I have alternate lie-ins on weekend days, so basically the whole of Saturday is me/Jo/Lori time, and Sunday is relaxing family time.

Funnily enough, I don't often hear the Dads at work being challenged on whether they spend enough time with their children.